10. The exploding paw

AN AMPUTATION

One afternoon in Springtime 2012, Ronnie suddenly started to limp when she came home from her walk.

We couldn’t work out why, as we hadn’t seen her take a fall or get any injuries while she was out.

Over the course of that evening, she became really hot & her paw began to swell…. & swell… & swell.

By the following morning it was massive, like a small balloon & about the size of an orange.

When she got up the next day & went out in the yard, it burst & an ocean of pus & blood exploded out from inside her paw…

It was properly rank & smelt terrible. The only plus side was that it took the pressure off her ballooning foot, so she was not in so much pain after it had popped.

hhh

Time for the experts

Off to the Vets she went…

The Vet X-rayed & examined her & said that although nothing was apparent, some kind of foreign body must have been stuck in her foot for a good while & it had become badly infected.

They reckoned it had been festering away on the quiet, for a while & had just picked that day to finally properly flare up.

The big worry was that the infection might have gone into the bone in her foot & her whole toe was gonna have to come off.

She began a 3 week course of very strong antibiotics, to see if it would calm down & we kept our fingers crossed & a close eye on her.

She also go a prescription for what is basically like doggie Calpol, called Metacam. Having a dog you love is very much like having a small child.

All parents know that having a Calpol type drug to hand is a blessing, when you are looking after little ones.

She kept on licking one particular toe over the next three weeks, more & more & eventually chewed her own claw until it was hanging off!

We already knew something was still majorly up & had her booked back in at the Vets that very afternoon.

Her foot was still really swollen, though not as bad as it had been back when it had first burst & now her claw was dangling by a thread, revealing a little red stump of her inner toe.

So poor little Ronnie was back in the vets, this time booked in as an in patient & awaiting a potential total toe amputation . They knocked her out & went into her foot for a proper look around.

After much poking about, they found that the infection was not quite as advanced as they had first thought & luckily, she only had to lose a little bit of bone at the end of her toe & not the complete digit.

So off it came & on went the dreaded cone on her head again… She was so miserable…

House bound yet again, with a big fat cone on her noggin & the end of her poor little toe chopped off.

Turns out the thing stuck in her foot was a bit of ‘plant matter,’ like a grass seed or something..?

How it got in there we will never know, but it was a proper song & dance to put it right. It also cost a flippin’ fortune, was worth every penny & once again we were totally saved by her insurance.

Vetinary care is expensive, really expensive. Vets study for about a million years & if you take time to think about it, what with horses, reptiles, birds, fish, dogs & cats, they have to know a ton of stuff & take years qualifying.

We think they deserve every penny they get & Ronnie’s vets, Crofts, are absolutely fantastic. We can’t recommend them highly enough.

The moral of the story yet again, is always, always, always, insure your dog.

Our friend Jo who has put events on at the Club before, to raise money & awareness for animal rights, is a nurse at Crofts amazing hospital & she always makes sure Ronnie gets some extra special cuddles when she isn’t well.

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NORMAL SERVICE HAS BEEN RESUMED

After a far shorter than expected convalescence, Ronnie was soon back on top form, running around like nothing had ever happened.

The only noticeable difference is that she is now permanently missing one claw & a little bit of toe…

But she is so resilient & ultra fit, that she just bounces right back.

She is such a little angel & just so, so pretty, that it simply adds to her overall heavenly cuteness.